Forest Laboratories Potentially Illegal Marketing

According to a document by Forest Laboratories, the aggressive marketing and sales of its antidepressant Lexapro may have crossed the line between medical education and marketing. The New York Times (Sept 2) reported that Forest implied Lexapro is superior to Celexa and other antidepressants but the FDA did not require Forest to test its theory by legitimate means. Instead the agency approved Lexapro's use in depressed adolescents based in part on the results of a study Forest conducted using Celexa, its older drug with dwindling sales.

It would seem that the impetus for creating Lexapro was that the patent on Celexa was running out and the company was at risk of losing Celexa sales to cheaper generics. Celexa sells at a fraction of a cost compared with Lexapro. Forest outlined a detailed marketing campaign aimed at psychiatrists to prescribe the more expensive Lexapro: the document said the company planned to spend $34.7 million to pay 2,000 psychiatrists and primary care doctors to deliver 15,000 marketing lectures to their peers in one year, from large-scale dinner programs to one-on-one lunches with Forest representatives and doctors.

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Published on Sep-3-09